Anecdotes, Essays, Poetry and Prose
The Rules
Talking it over, the three friends figured they hadn't been out this late, together, since at least 1992, a time when they were boys pretending to be men.
It was a Thursday, 11:56 p.m. In the dark, they sat huddled beneath a copse of trees on a hillside overlooking a two-lane highway. It was quiet; last month's cicadas were gone. Overhead, the sky was clear, and each time they inhaled, the plastic logos on their black t-shirts turned inside out were cold on their stomachs.
They sat whispering among the trees. Just to their left, the woods opened up to a golf course and, behind that, a cluster of suburban homes. Noises traveled far across the valley of manicured grass.
Headlights flickered through the trees to their right. The three friends stood. One of them -- the tall one -- reached into a group of fallen leaves and removed an egg he'd hidden there.
"No, wait," one of the friends said. "If you hit him that way, then he can turn around right there at Harris Exxon. Wait to throw at one headed toward town." All three friends sat back down as the car sped by.
"This is bullshit," the tall one said. "I had him dead to rights."
"Yes, but if you hit them as they head toward town, there's at least a half mile of road before they can turn around. You know. Down there by what's-his-name's insurance office. That strip mall down there. That's the closest place to turn around. By then they've either cooled off or we're long gone. It makes more sense." He was the smart one.
"My turn," said the short one. He picked an egg off the ground.
"Nope. Still mine," said the tall one. "I haven't thrown yet."
"That's not how it works," said the smart one. "You had your car. Now he has his. It's a car-by-car thing, not a throw-by-throw. That's the rule."
"It's a bullshit rule."
"Rules keep us from getting caught," the smart one said.
This time the car came from the left, toward town. The short friend crouched, egg in hand, and angled his body toward the road. They watched and waited. As it passed beneath a streetlight, the smart one grabbed the egg from his buddy's hand.
"No, no, no, don't be throwing at trucks," the smart one said. The truck, a lime green F-150 of 1970s vintage, passed and was gone, and the three buddies huddled again.
"Now what?" the short one said.
"Bad asses drive old trucks," the smart friend said. "Newer trucks are OK. Hell, I think a pretty little Toyota all chromed out needs egged just on general principle. But old ones have big sonafabitch drivers that will chase us down. What do they have to lose? A life sentence at Mount Olive would be an improvement over Dodd Street Trailer Park."
"First rule, gentlemen," the smart one said, "know your target."
According to the rules, it was the smart one's turn. He waited. Five minutes, then ten passed. They were quiet. From the left, a Lincoln Continental, big as a bus, passed beneath. The smart friend did nothing.
"What, bad assess drive Lincolns, too?" the tall one said.
"No, but old people do. Especially the old ladies. See how slow she was driving? No way I'm egging an old lady. Give her a heart attack."
"Yeah, I guess that's true," the short one said. "I hadn't thought of that."
"I mean, damn," the tall one said. "We didn't have this many rules when we were in high school. Hell, we egged people in broad daylight walking down by Video Madness. Just for the hell of it. Remember that?"
The baritone flutter of an engine announced itself to the darkened trees, and the friends huddled beneath. "I'm up," the tall friend said.
"Hold up. Dude. Hold up, hold up."
"Nope. I'm going." The tall friend lobbed an egg toward the road long before the motorcycle got there. The smart one thought it was a miss for sure. He hoped. But the tall one played third base in high school and walked on at the local community college, playing third base. Muscle memory, he would explain later. His aim was true.
The egg exploded across the rider's chest.
"GO GO GO GO GO GO!"
They ran and ran and ran. The undergrowth slapped at their knees while branches whipped across their faces. The three men giggled like little boys, stumbling down the hill where they'd been and sprinting up another, taller hill. Ahead of them, about 100 yards down the other side, the subdivision laid out at the edge of the woods.
They stopped just on the other side of the crest of the hill, collapsing in the underbrush, desperate to keep their muffled laughter from turning into a maelstrom of hysteria. It was an old, familiar feeling, not experienced in years, and it was as hard to contain as it had been all those years ago. They listened as best they could. There was nothing. From the distant vantage point, the road was empty. The tall one continued chuckling, a sound like muffled sneezes. They all lay on their backs, looking up at the stars overhead.
"Dude, you never hit a motorcycle," the smart one said. Even he was laughing. "That's a big rulebook no-no." They were close to delirious. The short one made no noise, but his gut heaved up and down.
"Oh, forget that shit," the tall friend said. "If he's gonna lay it down after getting hit by a little egg he shouldn't be riding a bike."
"No, man. It's not that," the smart one said. "They can turn around too quickly. And you think beat-up truck drivers are bad asses, think about bikers. Remember CJ Stokeley? Got his ass handed to him by a biker up at the Hilltop Lounge. And Stoke was a tough sonofabitch. Didn't say anything, is what I heard. Dude just started wailing on him."
"He said he didn't like David Allen Coe," the short one said. "I was there. That's why he got his ass beat"
"See? My point exactly," the smart one said. "Crazy redneck biker thinks he's a Hell's Angel and getting all crazy up on someone just for hating David Allen Coe. Tweakers and shit. That's the kind of person rides a chopper around here."
"Man, forget that," the tall one said. "Stoke was probably asking for it. Guy's an asshole magnet. Besides, our biker is long..."
The road wasn't silent anymore. They stopped talking. Breathing. A motorcycle roared into view as they spun onto their stomachs, lying as flat as they could. It was a moonless night. Their dark clothes blended in with the hillside. Just over the hill, down on the pavement, the engine turned off and they heard a kickstand hit the blacktop. The road gravel clicked with footsteps.
The biker was standing in the middle of the highway, panning his eyes back and forth across the ridge line.
"Alright you piece of shit," he screamed into the darkness, a voice like Pall Malls wrapped in sandpaper, lit with an acetylene torch. "If you can hear me -- and I know you can -- then you'd better run right this dammed second because I have a pair of brass knucks engraved with the words 'Ass Stomper' on one hand, and on my other is resting on the handle of a silver Colt .45 with a portrait of Mary the Mother of Christ on the handle, weeping for the life you once had. And both of them are walking up that hill with me. Right now."
The three friends took him at his word. The short one's legs couldn't carry him as fast as his brain begged him to run. He tumbled end over end down the hillside toward the neighborhood. The others stopped to help him up. On the move again, their six feet barely hit the ground, dashing toward the short one's minivan parked on a street where they'd grown up playing basketball.
"Wait," the smart one said, just as they neared the break in the woods. The car was in sight. So close. "Let's take a look around before we go running out there."
The sound came again: the banshee scream of a Harley's engine. Then, the kickstand on pavement. Boots on the ground. They hit the ground and lay still.
"I was in Viet-fucking-Nam, gentlemen," the biker yelled into the woods. "I chased gooks smarter than you in jungles thicker than these little trees you think you're safe in. Your car is probably around here, ain't it? Ever hear of Khe San? 'Cause that's where this Marine first learned to kick ass and dodge mortar rounds. And that hell of a mountain in that hell of a country is gonna feel like Fort Lauderdale at spring break compared to what those woods are gonna be for you. I guaran-damn-tee it. Semper Fi, motherfuckers."
The leather-bound ogre wasn't as sure as he seemed, despite the bravado. He made no effort to enter the woods, sitting instead on his Harley and scanned the woods for movement or sound. He craned his neck, trying to see over the hill and back toward the highway. Later, he paced. He left after an hour. None of the three friends went anywhere. Not for much longer. They buried their faces in the musty loam. They said nothing, the only sound coming as they short one groaned: he'd pissed himself sometime near dawn.
The tall friend got up first. Slowly. Quietly. He walked toward the car, and climbed in when the short one unlocked it with his remote, the three cringing at the beep of the locks releasing.
Later, at the diner over coffee and hash browns and eggs, they all agreed it wasn't as fun as it used to be. None of it. Egging. Video games late into the night. Drinking entire bottles of cheap, pink wine. They all had wives now, and children. Mortgages and jobs and responsibilities and chinos and 401ks and beach vacations each summer with the in-laws.
The diner was full of their laughter and stories. Their thoughts had been bottled up in those hours lying among the trees. Each now wanted to tell the others how he'd felt. It was funny now. It always ways, after the fact. It was a new story, joining the old ones.
It wasn't the first time they'd got away. And it wouldn't be the last.